Interesting Links for 10-10-2021

[andrewducker]

How will Sandman handle its transgender character?

(tags:LGBT Sandman neilgaiman transgender writing TV comics )

Have you collateralised your bird of prey? (I was amused and delighted by this satire)

(tags:finance birds satire funny )

Proof that you can totally make a USB-C iPhone.

(tags:USB iPhone video )

Comments

[cmcmck]

Decent handling of a trans character is long overdue.

I've seen so much dross over the years!

[andrewducker]

Wanda's character was vetted by Roz Kaveney, who is a friend of Neil's. But it was still 30 years ago, and things have moved on since then.

[cmcmck]

I've known Roz for a very long time and would trust her judgement then as now.

[dewline]

Reassuring, all of this.

[andrewducker]

Some more details
https://twitter.com/RozKaveney/status/1107743540736651264

[calimac]

Roz writes, "As to the Wanda's death thing, she dies protecting a horrid old woman she doesn't even like, from a disaster caused by the folly and pride of the witch who misgendered her. It's a tragic heroic death and most trans characters in popular media even now don't get more than pathos."

Roz is absolutely right that Wanda's death is a heroic tragedy, and I wrote an entire academic paper on Sandman making that argument. But she misremembers one thing: it wasn't the witch who misgendered Wanda, it was "the gods" according to the character George. And I'd be surprised if the primitivist "gods" were more enlightened then that.

And, though Thessaly (the witch) showed - as Morpheus tells her - folly and pride, she was attempting to save the life of the character Barbie. So she wasn't evil, she just pursued good badly.